Eval: Support for validity, good reliability, however test may be culture bound and there may be other attachment types.

Explanations: Learning Theory

Classical Conditioning

Caregiver (NS) associated with food (UCS). Caregiver becomes CS.

Operant Conditioning

Crying behaviour reinforced positively for infant and negatively for carer.

Hunger was seen as the primary drive, with attachment being secondary through association with hunger

Evaluation: Lorenz and Harlow found that feeding is not the key to attachment. Schaffer and Emerson found that most primary attachment figures were the mother's even when others did the feeding. Ignores other factors.

Cultural variations

Van Ijzendoorn

Secure attachment was most common everywhere.

Insecure-avoidant most common in Germany and least common in Japan.

Insecure-resistant overall least common, but was highest in Israel and Japan and least common was in Great Britain.

Eval: Large samples, but method of assessment is biased, and samples tend to be unrepresentative of culture.

Study: Between 25 and 32 weeks of age, 50% of babies showed separation anxiety. Attachment tended to be the caregiver who was the most effective. By 40 weeks of age, 80% of babies had a specific attachment and almost 30% displayed multiple attachments.

Harlow: In this study, Harlow reared rhesus monkeys, some of which had a wire mother and some had a soft cloth mother.

It was found that the monkeys preferred to touch the soft cloth mother over the wire one. Even if the wire one dispensed milk, the monkeys preferred the contact comfort gained from the soft cloth mother. Critical period of 90 days.

Those monkeys who were maternally deprived as youths were very violent towards their own young when they were adults, some being so aggressive that they killed their children.

Eval: Theoretical and practical value (helps understand factors in child abuse), but there are ethical issues.

Lorenz: In this study, Lorenz observed imprinting by dividing a clutch of goose eggs, half being hatched with their mother in the natural environment, and the other half hatched in an incubator where the first thing they saw was Lorenz.

It was found that the incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group followed their mother. This is imprinting, whereby bird species attach to and follow the first moving object they see. Critical period of a few hours.

Eval: Not appropriate to generalise to humans, some of Lorenz's observations have been questioned.

Explanations: Bowlby's monotropy theory

This is the theory in which infants form an attachment to a primary caregiver that is more important than all other attachments.

Infants also emit social releasers such as smiling or crying, to which adults are biologically attuned. There is a critical period of 2 years in which an attachment must form.

Infants also visualise the relationship they have with their primary caregiver. This is an internal working model, and can be used to apply to all other relationships.

Evaluation: Mixed evidence, some babies form multiple, not primary attachments. Support for social releasers, Brazleton found when social releasers ignored, babies were upset. Support for internal working model, Bailey et al found quality of attachment is passed on through generations of families.

Maternal Deprivation

Bowlby believed that continuous emotional care from a mother is necessary for normal emotional and intellectual development.Physical separation only leads to deprivation when the child loses emotional care.

The first 30 months are critical and deprivation in that time causes damage.

Effects of deprivation include low IQ, and affectionless psychopathy. 44 thieves study showed many more APs than controls had a prolonged separation.

Maybe poor evidence: Orphans have experienced other traumas, Bowlby potential biased observer. Counter-evidence from Lewis, sample of 500, no link between early separation and later criminality. Bowlby exagerrated the importance of a critical period.

Bowlby 44 thieves study: It was found that of the 44 thieves, 14 were affectionless psychopathy, of this 14, 12 had been maternally deprived.

Romanian orphan studies

Rutter: Half of the orphans showed mental retardation, and the longer it takes to get adopted, the lower the IQ of the child. Children adopted after 6 months of age showed disinhibited attachment.

Eval: Good practical applications, but the children weren't randomly assigned to conditions and issues with generalisability.

Disinhibited attachment is a typical effect of spending time in an institution, showing no stranger anxiety.

Influence of early attachments on later relationships

Internal working model

Having a good/bad experience of attachment will lead the child to have good/bad expectations for future relationships. Secure infants form better friendships and are less likely to bully.

Memory

Multi-store model

Sensory register

Consists of multiple stores for each of the senses e.g iconic for visual info

Candidate genes, may be involved in producing symptoms of OCD, is polygenic (many combinations of up to 230 genetic variations) and different combinations may cause different kinds of OCD.

Eval: Supporting evidence, but too many candidate genes.

Neural explanation

Low levels of serotonin linked to OCD. Decision making systems such as the frontal lobes parahippocampal gyrus may be malfunctioning

Eval: Supporting evidence, but the serotonin link may not be unique to OCD.

Treatment: Drug therapy

SSRIs, antidepressants that increase levels of serotonin at the synapse. Combined with CBT or other drugs. Also, other alternatives such as clomipramine or SSRIs.

Eval: Effective at tackling symptoms, cost-effective, but there are side effects.

Social Influence

Types and explanations of conformity

Identification: A moderate type of conformity where we act in the same way with the group because we value it and want to be a part of it, but we don't necessarily agree with everything the majority believes.

Compliance: A superficial and temporary form of conformity where we outwardly go along with the majority view but privately disagree with it.

Internalisation: A deep type of conformity where we take on the majority view because we accept it as correct. It leads to a far reaching and permanent change in behaviour even when the group is absent.

Conformity: A change in behavior or opinions as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.

Asch study: Confederates gave wrong answers to see if pp would conform on a line comparison test. Naive pps conformed on 36.8% of trials. 25% never conformed.

Conformity increased up to group size of four. Dissenter reduced conformity. Conformity increased when task was harder.

Informational social influence: We agree with the opinion of the majority because we believe it's correct. We accept it because we want to be correct as well.

Eval: Support for ISI

Normative social influence: We agree with the opinion of the majority because we want to be accepted, gain social approval and be liked.

Eval: Individual differences in NSI are ignored.

Conformity to social roles

Zimbardo: Mock prison with students randomly assigned to guard or prisoner. Guards became brutal, prisoners withdrawn and depressed. Pps conformed to their roles as guards or prisoners.

Random allocation, increased internal validity. Lack of realism due to stereotypes. Only one-third of guards were brutal, exaggerated. Ethical issues.

Defined as the conformity people put in to certain social roles in society such as teacher, student, adult, child, passenger etc.

Obedience

A change in behaviour in response to a demand from an authority figure.

Milgram: Pps gave fake electric shocks to a 'learner' in obedience to instructions from the 'experimenter. 65% gave highest shock of 450V. 100% gave shocks up to 300V. Many showed signs of anxiety.

Low internal validity as pps realised shocks were fake, but replication with real shocks got similar results. Findings generalise to other situations such as hospital wards. Ethical issues.

Milgram's situational variables

Proximity: Obedience decreased to 40% when teacher could hear learner, and to 30% in touch proximity condition.

Location: Obedience decreased to 47.5% when study moved to run-down office block.

Uniform: Obedience decreased to 20% when 'member of the public' was the experimenter.

Bickman showed power of uniform in his field experiment. Lack of internal validity, some of Milgram's pps knew the procedure was faked, pps could have play acted, so not genuine obedience. Has been replicated in other cultures. Good control of variables.

Autonomous state: Individuals direct their own behaviour and take responsibility for the consequences.

Switching between these two states is called the agentic shift.

Binding factors: Allows the individual to ignore the damaging effects of their obedient behaviour.

Eval: Limited explanation, doesn't explain many research findings. However, it does have research support from Blass and Schmidt.

Social-psychological factors: Legitimacy of authority

Legitimacy of the system

Concerns the extent to which the body is a legitimate source of authority

Legitimacy of authority within the system

The power individuals hold to give orders because of their position in the system.

Legitimacy of orders given

Refers to the extent with which the order is perceived to be a legitimate area for the authority figure.

Destructive authority: People can obviously use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes, such as Hitler.

Eval: Explains obedience in different cultures due to different hierarchies.

Dispositional explanations: Authoritarian personality

Adorno used F-scale to study unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups. People with authoritarian personalities identify with the 'strong' and have fixed cognitive style. Extreme respect for authority and obedience to it.

Origin; Harsh parenting, creating hostility that can't be expressed against parents so is displaced.

Eval: Support, some of Milgram's pps had authoritarian personality. Can't explain increase in obedience across a whole culture, so social identity theory is better AND has political bias.

A personality type in which individuals are submissive towards those who are superior to them within a hierarchy, but dismissive of those who lie beneath them. They are 'black and white' thinkers who believe in traditional values.

Resistance to social influence

Locus of control: The sense of what directs events in our lives.

Contiuum: High internal at one end and high external at the other. Internals believe they're responsible for what happens to them. Externals believe that things happen to them without their control.

Internals more likely to resist social pressure to conform or to obey.

Research support, but there is contradictory research.

Social support: Conformity reduced by presence of dissenters from the group. Obedience decreases in presence of disobedient peer who acts as a model to follow.

Research support for dissenting peers in resistance to conformity and obedience.

Minority influence

Consistency: If the minority is consistent this attracts the attention of the majority over time.

Commitment: MI more powerful if minority shows dedication such as by making personal sacrifices, shows minority not acting out of self-interest. Augmentation principle.

Flexibility: MI more effective if the minority show flexibility by accepting counter-arguments and comprimises.

Defined as a form of social influence in which a minority of people persuades others to adopt their beliefs or behaviours

Eval: Support from Moscovici and Wood et al's meta analysis. However, artificial tasks

Showed that a consistent minoirty opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent one.

Snowball effect: When increasing numbers of people switch from the majority to the minority and the faster this happens, the faster the rate of conversion.

Moscovici study: 3 conditions, confederates said they were green, confederates were inconsistent and a control of no confederates. Consistent: pps gave same wrong answer on 8.42% of trials, 32% conformed on at least one trial. Inconsistent: 1.25%, control: pps wrongly identified 0.25% of time

Eval: Artificial tasks, applications of research is limited, but support for internalisation